However, citizens in the south were on average 4 times as wealthy as those in the north, and if you substitute slaves for temporary workers, the wellbeing of the citizenry in the South proves my point. If you had to choose where to live (from the perspective of a citizen), you would clearly rather live in the South (assuming there were no moral issues surrounding slavery).

Oh come on now. If you substituted slaves with temporary workers, the well-being of the citizenry would have dropped dramatically because they would've had to actually pay their workers instead of beating them into submission.

Immigrants often do the work that citizens are unwilling to do. Again, all things being equal, employers will pick a citizen over an immigrant for a job, reasons for this range from things as simple as better language proficiency to as malicious as discrimination and racism. This is also the prime reason for immigrant unemployment. If an immigrant gets the job, it is because they were better suited for it in the eyes of the employer (maybe that's because they are willing to settle for a salary that a citizen would not be, however if you have strong labour unions, you can create an environment where salaries are fairly standardized and companies can't hire immigrants for smaller pay).

The point about China and Monaco is that China has a vastly superior economy, despite having a lower purchasing power per capita. Reading your post again, I notice that you were making the point that citizens in a country with a higher purchasing power per capita are, on average, better off than citizens in a country with a lower ppp capita. This, of course, goes without saying. That does not, however, mean that the citizenry suffers if that figure goes down when that country accepts immigrants who are less wealthy than the average citizen.

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Cheap immigrants continued to flood our streets and crowd our hospitals without any economic prospects. They worked for cheap when our own citizens couldn't find work. They plagued our public service and social structures while contributing nothing productive to society.

The fact is that most immigrants are a drain on society.

So working for companies in your country is "contributing nothing productive to our society"? What is, then? And how do immigrants "plague" your social structure?

UK abolishing slavery almost 200 years ago and having people of colour as part of their society yet having not had massive upheavals about parts of its citizenry having strongly distinguishing features is counter to your "fact" that heterogeneity is somehow detrimental to a society.

Israel is the most advanced country in the middle east and its GPD per capita is the highest (aside from Qatar, UAE and Kuwait, which have artificially high GDPs due to their oil reserves, to which USA has access). Israel is by far the best partner USA could hope for in the Middle East in terms of economical gain.Siding with Poland in 1939 was also against the self-interest of Britain. Just like it is now against the self-interest of the EU, USA and every other nation restrict trade with Russia to do so.

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Second, it is anything but inevitable. The fact is that most of the world is rife with conflict caused by diversity, and exceptions are few and far between (and these exceptions have always proven to be temporary). The fact is that no cosmopolitan society has ever withstood the test of time; clearly it lacks the adaptive power of a homogenous society.

Again, the UK is a cosmopolitan society. I think it has stood the test of time just fine.

Why do you think that people can get over some distinguishing features but not others (colour of your hair, height, body build vs. colour of your skin)? Most scientific discoveries were fueled by thinking differently and consequently, proponents of homogeneity have tried to silence them. Thus, it stands to reason that diversity is key to advancement.

Your assertion that democracy works is without diversity is completely baseless. The bit about Iceland is, I'd go so far as to say, nonsensical. Iceland, throughout history, has been anything but a thriving society and has been subject to the rule of, in turn, almost every other Scandinavian country through the vast majority of its history. How you got to "the best-functioning, and most resilient democracy" is beyond me.

However, citizens in the south were on average 4 times as wealthy as those in the north, and if you substitute slaves for temporary workers, the wellbeing of the citizenry in the South proves my point. If you had to choose where to live (from the perspective of a citizen), you would clearly rather live in the South (assuming there were no moral issues surrounding slavery).

Oh come on now. If you substituted slaves with temporary workers, the well-being of the citizenry would have dropped dramatically because they would've had to actually pay their workers instead of beating them into submission.

Accounting for inflation, a slave cost about $40,000-80,000/year in upkeep (of course, slaves were not imported during the Antebellum period, so there were no procurement costs). This is significantly more costly than modern temporary workers.

QUOTE(Slow_Runner @ Aug 20 2014, 10:37 AM)

Immigrants often do the work that citizens are unwilling to do. Again, all things being equal, employers will pick a citizen over an immigrant for a job, reasons for this range from things as simple as better language proficiency to as malicious as discrimination and racism. This is also the prime reason for immigrant unemployment. If an immigrant gets the job, it is because they were better suited for it in the eyes of the employer (maybe that's because they are willing to settle for a salary that a citizen would not be, however if you have strong labour unions, you can create an environment where salaries are fairly standardized and companies can't hire immigrants for smaller pay).

Well, this isn't true. Employers love hiring immigrants because they have more coercive power over them, they are willing to work long hours and odd shifts (the types of which are illegal in most western countries), and they tend to work for less.

Unionizing all labour to help cope with the problems caused by immigration is another Band-Aid solution, which doesn't address the real cause of the problems.

QUOTE(Slow_Runner @ Aug 20 2014, 10:37 AM)

The point about China and Monaco is that China has a vastly superior economy, despite having a lower purchasing power per capita. Reading your post again, I notice that you were making the point that citizens in a country with a higher purchasing power per capita are, on average, better off than citizens in a country with a lower ppp capita. This, of course, goes without saying. That does not, however, mean that the citizenry suffers if that figure goes down when that country accepts immigrants who are less wealthy than the average citizen.

This is true only if the variables are not interrelated; that is that the citizenry primarily suffers in three ways: first, immigrants need jobs, and now compete with citizens for those same jobs, if they work for less, they will get these jobs, meaning that either some citizens will be unemployed, or some citizens will be underpaid (This is because the labour market has excess labour supply as opposed to labour demand); second, an increase in costs of public spending, viz social programmes, infrastructure costs etc. will be increased, and this burden will fall disproportionally on the citizenry; third is inflation, that this occurs is clearly the case and can be seen in housing prices in every major city in the world, which directly decreases the wellbeing of the citizenry (Not only does the cost of living increase, but there is deflationary pressure on wages, meaning that the purchasing power will decrease, as has been the case in the West since the age of immigration began, but not before).

QUOTE(Slow_Runner @ Aug 20 2014, 10:37 AM)

UK abolishing slavery almost 200 years ago and having people of colour as part of their society yet having not had massive upheavals about parts of its citizenry having strongly distinguishing features is counter to your "fact" that heterogeneity is somehow detrimental to a society.

I'm not sure which fantasy world you're living in, but the UK ending slavery didn't effect Britain, as there were no slaves in Britain, only in the colonies (there were prohibitions on the importation of negroes due to labour concerns). Also, England had plentiful labour. There were no upheavals because there was no mass immigration, no heterogeneity, and no integration.

QUOTE(Slow_Runner @ Aug 20 2014, 10:37 AM)

Israel is the most advanced country in the middle east and its GPD per capita is the highest (aside from Qatar, UAE and Kuwait, which have artificially high GDPs due to their oil reserves, to which USA has access). Israel is by far the best partner USA could hope for in the Middle East in terms of economical gain.Siding with Poland in 1939 was also against the self-interest of Britain. Just like it is now against the self-interest of the EU, USA and every other nation restrict trade with Russia to do so.

Israel is that way because we made it that way, but there's no intrinsic reason why that's the case (Palestine wasn't like that, so it's not geographic). If we pumped money and technology into Jordan for 60 years it would be the same.

Siding with Poland was in Britain's self interest, as the alternative would have been a massively empowered Germany. They should have declared war much earlier before Germany was able to massively re-arm.

QUOTE(Slow_Runner @ Aug 20 2014, 10:37 AM)

QUOTE

Second, it is anything but inevitable. The fact is that most of the world is rife with conflict caused by diversity, and exceptions are few and far between (and these exceptions have always proven to be temporary). The fact is that no cosmopolitan society has ever withstood the test of time; clearly it lacks the adaptive power of a homogenous society.

Again, the UK is a cosmopolitan society. I think it has stood the test of time just fine.

Why do you think that people can get over some distinguishing features but not others (colour of your hair, height, body build vs. colour of your skin)? Most scientific discoveries were fueled by thinking differently and consequently, proponents of homogeneity have tried to silence them. Thus, it stands to reason that diversity is key to advancement.

Your assertion that democracy works is without diversity is completely baseless. The bit about Iceland is, I'd go so far as to say, nonsensical. Iceland, throughout history, has been anything but a thriving society and has been subject to the rule of, in turn, almost every other Scandinavian country through the vast majority of its history. How you got to "the best-functioning, and most resilient democracy" is beyond me.

Diversity in thought, yes; diversity in skin-colour, no. A diversity of races has no impact on intellectual discovery (for which we need a diversity of intellects and aptitudes), however it does cause many negative problems for society which could easily and painlessly be avoided.

Iceland is the "best functioning" and "most resilient" democracy because it has functioned without difficulty or crisis for over 1000 years. That democracy works most efficiently on small scales is an axiomatic fact, and so is the fact that it works most efficiently when the society is homogenous, like Iceland.

I think you only have to look at the best places to live in Europe and you will quickly see that those which are the most homogenous are the best places to live eg. Scandinavia and England, whereas countries with significant regional differences eg. Spain, France, Germany, have historically been rife with conflict. (Germany has transitioned from the latter to the former, and due to the recent waves of immigration, to the latter again).